Ontological Description and Similarity-Based Discovery of Business Process Models

2013 ◽  
pp. 30-50
Author(s):  
Khalid Belhajjame ◽  
Marco Brambilla
Keyword(s):  
Web Service ◽  
Business Process ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Structural Information ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Domain Experts ◽  
New Business ◽  
Source Of Information

Project repositories are a central asset in software development, as they preserve the knowledge gathered in past development activities. Locating relevant information in a vast project repository is problematic, because it requires manually tagging projects with accurate metadata, an activity which is time consuming and prone to errors and omissions. Just like any other artifact or web service, business processes can be stored in repositories to be shared and used by third parties, e.g., as building blocks for constructing new business processes. The success of such a paradigm depends partly on the availability of effective search tools to locate business processes that are relevant to the user purposes. A handful of researchers have investigated the problem of business process discovery using as input syntactical and structural information that describes business processes. This work explores an additional source of information encoded in the form of annotations that semantically describe business processes. Business processes can be semantically described using the so called abstract business processes. These are designated by concepts from an ontology which additionally captures their relationships. This ontology can be built in an automatic fashion from a collection of (concrete) business processes, and this work illustrates how it can be refined by domain experts and used in the discovery of business processes, with the purpose of reuse and increase in design productivity.

Ontological Description and Similarity-Based Discovery of Business Process Models

2012 ◽  
pp. 846-866
Author(s):  
Khalid Belhajjame ◽  
Marco Brambilla
Keyword(s):  
Web Service ◽  
Business Process ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Structural Information ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Domain Experts ◽  
New Business ◽  
Source Of Information

Project repositories are a central asset in software development, as they preserve the knowledge gathered in past development activities. Locating relevant information in a vast project repository is problematic, because it requires manually tagging projects with accurate metadata, an activity which is time consuming and prone to errors and omissions. Just like any other artifact or web service, business processes can be stored in repositories to be shared and used by third parties, e.g., as building blocks for constructing new business processes. The success of such a paradigm depends partly on the availability of effective search tools to locate business processes that are relevant to the user purposes. A handful of researchers have investigated the problem of business process discovery using as input syntactical and structural information that describes business processes. This work explores an additional source of information encoded in the form of annotations that semantically describe business processes. Business processes can be semantically described using the so called abstract business processes. These are designated by concepts from an ontology which additionally captures their relationships. This ontology can be built in an automatic fashion from a collection of (concrete) business processes, and this work illustrates how it can be refined by domain experts and used in the discovery of business processes, with the purpose of reuse and increase in design productivity.

Ontological Description and Similarity-Based Discovery of Business Process Models

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 47-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Khalid Belhajjame ◽  
Marco Brambilla
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Structural Information ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Additional Source ◽  
Domain Experts ◽  
New Business ◽  
Source Of Information

Project repositories are a central asset in software development, as they preserve the knowledge gathered in past development activities. Locating relevant information in a vast project repository is problematic, because it requires manually tagging projects with accurate metadata, an activity which is time consuming and prone to errors and omissions. Just like any other artifact or web service, business processes can be stored in repositories to be shared and used by third parties, e.g., as building blocks for constructing new business processes. The success of such a paradigm depends partly on the availability of effective search tools to locate business processes that are relevant to the user purposes. A handful of researchers have investigated the problem of business process discovery using as input syntactical and structural information that describes business processes. This work explores an additional source of information encoded in the form of annotations that semantically describe business processes. Business processes can be semantically described using the so called abstract business processes. These are designated by concepts from an ontology which additionally captures their relationships. This ontology can be built in an automatic fashion from a collection of (concrete) business processes, and this work illustrates how it can be refined by domain experts and used in the discovery of business processes, with the purpose of reuse and increase in design productivity.

scholarly journals Process-Oriented Assessment of Web Services

2011 ◽  
pp. 269-293
Author(s):  
Jan-Hendrik Sewing ◽  
Michael Rosemann
Keyword(s):  
Web Services ◽  
Business Process ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Business Systems ◽  
Technical Aspects ◽  
Business Process Models ◽  
New Business ◽  
Potential Impact ◽  
Potential Use

Though Web services offer unique opportunities for the design of new business processes, the assessment of the potential impact of Web services is often reduced to technical aspects. This paper proposes a four-phase methodology which facilitates the evaluation of the potential use of Web services in e-business systems both from a technical and from a strategic viewpoint. It is based on business process models, which are used to frame the adoption of Web services and to assess their impact on existing business processes. The application of this methodology is described using a procurement scenario.

Recovery and Refinement of Business Process Models for Web Applications

2018 ◽  
pp. 248-291
Author(s):  
Alessandro Marchetto ◽  
Chiara Di Francescomarino
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Web Applications ◽  
Process Mining ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Model Complexity ◽  
Model Refinement ◽  
Business Process Models

Web Applications (WAs) have been often used to expose business processes to the users. WA modernization and evolution are complex and time-consuming activities that can be supported by software documentation (e.g., process models). When, as often happens, documentation is missing or is incomplete, documentation recovery and mining represent an important opportunity for reconstructing or completing it. Existing process-mining approaches, however, tend to recover models that are quite complex, rich, and intricate, thus difficult to understand and use for analysts and developers. Model refinement approaches have been presented in the literature to reduce the model complexity and intricateness while preserving the capability of representing the relevant information. In this chapter, the authors summarize approaches to mine first and refine later business process models from existing WAs. In particular, they present two process model refinement approaches: (1) re-modularization and (2) reduction. The authors introduce the techniques and show how to apply them to WAs.

A Web-based Tool for Business Process Improvement

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 68-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula Ventura Martins ◽  
Marielba Zacarias
Keyword(s):  
Process Improvement ◽  
Business Process ◽  
Process Modeling ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Authoring Tool ◽  
Business Process Improvement ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Business Process Models ◽  
New Business

Current business process modeling methodologies offer little guidance regarding how to discover and maintain business process models aligned with their actual execution. The authors argue that business processes should emerge and evolve collaboratively within an organization. Considering this limitation, this paper presents an overview of some Web-based tools and explores their main functionalities. This study highlights the need of a bi-directional form of communication, between operational and process actors. The paper contributes with a new business process and practice authoring tool based on authors' vision for business process improvement.

Recovery and Refinement of Business Process Models for Web Applications

2013 ◽  
pp. 134-175
Author(s):  
Alessandro Marchetto ◽  
Chiara Di Francescomarino
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Web Applications ◽  
Process Mining ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Model Complexity ◽  
Model Refinement ◽  
Business Process Models

Web Applications (WAs) have been often used to expose business processes to the users. WA modernization and evolution are complex and time-consuming activities that can be supported by software documentation (e.g., process models). When, as often happens, documentation is missing or is incomplete, documentation recovery and mining represent an important opportunity for reconstructing or completing it. Existing process-mining approaches, however, tend to recover models that are quite complex, rich, and intricate, thus difficult to understand and use for analysts and developers. Model refinement approaches have been presented in the literature to reduce the model complexity and intricateness while preserving the capability of representing the relevant information. In this chapter, the authors summarize approaches to mine first and refine later business process models from existing WAs. In particular, they present two process model refinement approaches: (1) re-modularization and (2) reduction. The authors introduce the techniques and show how to apply them to WAs.

A Web-Based Tool for Business Process Improvement

2020 ◽  
pp. 599-616
Author(s):  
Paula Ventura Martins ◽  
Marielba Zacarias
Keyword(s):  
Process Improvement ◽  
Business Process ◽  
Process Modeling ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Authoring Tool ◽  
Business Process Improvement ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Business Process Models ◽  
New Business

Current business process modeling methodologies offer little guidance regarding how to discover and maintain business process models aligned with their actual execution. The authors argue that business processes should emerge and evolve collaboratively within an organization. Considering this limitation, this paper presents an overview of some Web-based tools and explores their main functionalities. This study highlights the need of a bi-directional form of communication, between operational and process actors. The paper contributes with a new business process and practice authoring tool based on authors' vision for business process improvement.

Organizational Change, IT and Business Process Redesign

2010 ◽  
pp. 57-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudio Petti ◽  
Klein Mark
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Organizational Change ◽  
Business Process ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Business Environment ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Organizational Forms ◽  
Process Redesign ◽  
New Organizational Forms ◽  
New Business

Change in the business environment is pervasive and accelerating. New, agile, and often IT-based organizational forms are emerging. Recent management literature has paid a great deal of attention to observing and advocating this kind of organizational change. Relatively little attention has been given, however, to how to deal practically with these changes. How, for example, can companies foster the business process changes necessary to become agile? How can IT be leveraged for this purpose? In the attempt to provide some insights into these issues, this chapter will present a methodology for redesigning and inventing new business processes that relies on a handbook of process models, and is particularly suited to taking advantage of information technology to enable new organizational forms.

scholarly journals Business processes exceptions in relation to operational performance

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (5) ◽  
pp. 908-922 ◽  
Author(s):  
Remco Dijkman ◽  
Oktay Turetken ◽  
Geoffrey Robert van IJzendoorn ◽  
Meint de Vries
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Operational Performance ◽  
Normal Flow ◽  
Throughput Time ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Business Process Models ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose Business process models describe the way of working in an organization. Typically, business process models distinguish between the normal flow of work and exceptions to that normal flow. However, they often present an idealized view. This means that unexpected exceptions – exceptions that are not modeled in the business process model – can also occur in practice. This has an effect on the efficiency of the organization, because information systems are not developed to handle unexpected exceptions. The purpose of this paper is to study the relation between the occurrence of exceptions and operational performance. Design/methodology/approach The paper does this by analyzing the execution logs of business processes from five organizations, classifying execution paths as normal or exceptional. Subsequently, it analyzes the differences between normal and exceptional paths. Findings The results show that exceptions are related to worse operational performance in terms of a longer throughput time and that unexpected exceptions relate to a stronger increase in throughput time than expected exceptions. Practical implications These findings lead to practical implications on policies that can be followed with respect to exceptions. Most importantly, unexpected exceptions should be avoided by incorporating them into the process – and thus transforming them into expected exceptions – as much as possible. Also, as not all exceptions lead to longer throughput times, continuous improvement should be employed to continuously monitor the occurrence of exceptions and make decisions on their desirability in the process. Originality/value While work exists on analyzing the occurrence of exceptions in business processes, especially in the context of process conformance analysis, to the best of the authors’ knowledge this is the first work that analyzes the possible consequences of such exceptions.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document